Janet Holtzblatt Journalist Profile

Articles

What We Need To Know To Judge The IRS’s Effectiveness

Sep 20, 2024 | taxpolicycenter.org | Janet Holtzblatt

The fate of a government agency’s funding is always precarious—and especially so for the Internal Revenue Service, one of the most federal agencies in the United States. That’s why it’s imperative that the IRS monitor, evaluate, and regularly report its performance. In a new report, I describe a holistic approach to performance measurement that improves on earlier approaches including those outlined in the IRS’s 2023 and 2024 Strategic Operating Plans.
Measuring Success: New Performance Metrics for a New Internal Revenue Service

Sep 19, 2024 | taxpolicycenter.org | Janet Holtzblatt |Robert McClelland |Livia Mucciolo |Safia Sayed

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) of 2022 enacted an $80 billion 10-year investment in the Internal Revenue Service on top of the agency’s regular annual appropriations. Although Congress cut the IRA funding by over 25 percent the following year, the agency has maintained its commitment to the transformative IRS Inflation Reduction Act Strategic Operating Plan to bring the agency into the 21st century.
A Guide to Understanding Racial Disparities in the Federal Individual Income Tax System

Jun 13, 2024 | taxpolicycenter.org | Aravind Boddupalli |Janet Holtzblatt |Lillian Hunter |Robert McClelland
The Home Mortgage Interest Deduction Reinforces Racial Disparities

Apr 2, 2024 | taxpolicycenter.org | Janet Holtzblatt |Robert McClelland |Gabriella Garriga

In a new report, we find that the US tax code’s home mortgage interest deduction (HMID) favors White families relative to Black and Hispanic or Latino families. That’s not surprising. A legacy of discrimination in the housing market and mortgage lending industry has contributed to lower homeownership rates among Black and Hispanic families than among White families. Consequently, .
Racial and Ethnic Disparities in the Home Mortgage Interest Deduction

Apr 2, 2024 | taxpolicycenter.org | Janet Holtzblatt |Robert McClelland |Gabriella Garriga |Livia Mucciolo
The past and future of public tax preparation

Mar 15, 2024 | brookings.edu | Janet Holtzblatt

This year, the IRS rolled out a new program that could be a gamechanger for tax preparation: Direct File, a free public alternative to commercial tax preparation software. The roll out is the latest in a long series of efforts to make tax preparation free, simple and public. What can those earlier efforts tell us about the future of Direct File? How did the pilot fare this year, and how could the program be expanded and improved?
Racial disparities in the income tax treatment of marriage

Nov 7, 2023 | brookings.edu | Janet Holtzblatt |Swati Joshi |Nora Cahill |William G. Gale

Editor's note: This working paper is an updated version of an earlier report on racial disparities in the income tax code’s treatment of marriage. You can view the original version here. This new version was prepared for the National Bureau of Economic Research.
Race, Taxes, and Marriage

Oct 31, 2023 | taxpolicycenter.org | Brookings Institution |Janet Holtzblatt |Swati Joshi |Nora Cahill

Although the US tax code does not explicitly reference race or ethnicity, the federal individual income tax can create racial disparities when factors that affect tax liability are associated with race. This paper provides new evidence on racial differences in marriage tax penalties and bonuses, using data from the Survey of Consumer Finances. The results support Brown’s (2021) hypothesis that, controlling for income, penalties are more frequent and larger for Black couples than white couples.
Nora Cahill

Oct 31, 2023 | taxpolicycenter.org | Janet Holtzblatt |Swati Joshi |Nora Cahill |William G. Gale
Racial Disparities in the Income Tax Treatment of Marriage

Oct 19, 2023 | nber.org | Janet Holtzblatt |Swati Joshi |Nora Cahill |William G. Gale

The authors are affiliated with the Urban-Brookings Tax Policy Center (TPC). Holtzblatt is a senior fellow at the Urban Institute. Joshi was a senior research analyst at the Brookings Institution and is now a graduate student at the University of Wisconsin. Cahill was a senior research assistant at Brookings and is now attending the Harvard Kennedy School. Gale is the Miller Chair at Brookings and codirector of the TPC.